LEPUS 293 



Re Rustica, iii., xii.) the Alpine form, which Miller has 

 appropriately named L. timidus varronis, in the following 

 words : — " Alterius generis est, quod in Gallia nascitur ad 

 Alpes, qui hoc fere mutant, quod toti candidi sunt," i.e., "there 

 is another kind, which is found in Gaul on the Alps, which 

 make this change that they become totally white." They were 

 also noticed by Pliny, who wrote in the first century a.d. ; he 

 mentioned their seasonal changes of colour, and stated that 

 they eat snow for food. They are, however, said to have been 

 regarded as rarities at Rome in the same century, and to have 

 been brought into the circuses in the reign of the Emperor 

 Nero (Keller, 213). In spite of the fact that they were 

 specified as existing in the Orkneys in the twelfth and again 

 in the sixteenth centuries (see below, under L. t. scoticus), 

 they seem not to have been accurately known to zoologists 

 until comparatively recent years ; and this fact accounts (as 

 shown above on p. 251) for the confusion which has arisen over 

 the technical names of European hares. 



Externally, these hares are characterised, as compared with 

 L. europcBus, by their relatively large head, prominent eyes, less 

 highly developed olfactory apparatus and whiskers, shorter and 

 narrower ears, shorter tail, longer limbs, especially the fore, 

 and relatively larger feel. The coat is woolly, with distinct 

 pattern of the underfur, and there are marked juvenal and post- 

 juvenal pelages ; the tail is wholly white, and there is a con- 

 spicuous spring moult. There are eight mammae, of which a 

 pair are pectoral and three pairs abdominal. 



In the skull the brain-case is relatively broader and shallower ; 

 the frontal region is concave behind the nose, anteriorly less 

 constricted and broader behind the superciliary processes, 

 which are raised above the level of the skull in connection with 

 the large eyes. As a result, the dorsal profile is not con- 

 spicuously arched, and barely rises above the anterior roots of 

 the zygomata. The anterior portion of each zygoma is 

 relatively deeper, the distance from the anterior termination of 

 the groove on the outer surface to the front edge of the arch 

 being less than the least depth. 



In the teeth, the upper incisors are slightly narrower as well 

 as straighter, and their roots extend beyond the premaxillo- 



